Florida man guilty of assaulting girlfriend

TRENTON — A Florida man was found guilty Wednesday of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and criminal restraint of his ex-girlfriend after two days of jury deliberation.

Jerry Vazquez, 35, beat his then-girlfriend, Delain McElroy, with a metal broomstick during a heated argument in 2010, breaking the stick in half and slicing a deep gash into her arm, prosecutors argued.

Vazquez, who was living in Princeton with McElroy at the time of the incident, had a tumultuous relationship with his girlfriend which lasted over three years. Local authorities were called to their home multiple times for domestic violence issues which at times left the defendant bruised and scratched at the hands of his girlfriend, according to in court testimony.

“In the beginning it was a normal relationship, like a honeymoon thing, but later on things changed,” Vazquez said when he took the stand in his own defense during trial proceedings. “(During an argument in 2008,) she wanted me to bring her to Trenton and I said no because it was too late, so she scratched my neck and hit me in the eye with her left arm,” he said.

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According to the prosecution, McElroy, who is 12 years older than her boyfriend, began arguing with the defendant in the early morning hours of May 2, 2010. The couple had been socializing with friends for most of the night and when they left, McElroy asked Vazquez to take her to Trenton. Vazquez claimed the victim would often asked him to take late night drives from Princeton to Trenton so she could allegedly buy controlled substances.

According to the defendant’s testimony, he was making a late night snack when his girlfriend came into the kitchen and started the argument. She allegedly followed Vazquez into the living room and, according to the defense, she picked up the broom and started hitting Vazquez. “She hit me three times and that is when I put my hand up and the broom broke ... a shard of the metal landed on the couch,” he said.

Defense attorney Michael Amantia claimed Vazquez pushed his girlfriend onto the couch, out of self-defense, and that is when McElroy’s arm was sliced open by the metal which fell from the broken broom stick.

State Prosecutor John Boyle, argued that the dried blood stains which still remained on the broken broomstick tell a different story. During closing arguments, Boyle told the jury that McElroy walked away from the heated argument which started in the kitchen and sat on the couch in the living room. The petit woman who, because of a previous knee surgery needed a cane to walk outside of the house, was attacked by Vazquez. “He hit her on purpose … he hit her so hard that the broomstick snapped and he chose to hit her again,” said Boyle during closing arguments.

Prosecution claimed that the broomstick was used as a weapon during the argument and Vazquez restrained McElroy by pushing her down on the couch every time she tried to get up.

Vazquez was taken into custody and will be formally sentenced on Feb. 1.